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Zvi Hecker: Memory is the soil of architecture (October 5, 2011)44:18

After being introduced by Eric Owen Moss, Zvi Hecker discusses some of his earlier work. He comments on the importance of overcoming the sterility of a solitary idea which will not lead to other ideas. Hecker presents a design for housing and a commercial center in Tel Aviv which he started by integrating the geometry of the Gozo Citadel in Ferrara and continued by created geometries derived from the original citadel form.

Hecker presents several projects that are organized as a spiral. Some have a structural core at the center for taller structures, and others have a courtyard at the center for lower structures. Hecker shows a series of images of completed spiral houses. He compares their working drawings to Piranesi’s prisons.

Hecker describes a project for a Jewish cultural center in Duisburg, Germany as the last of the spiral designs. The building extends into the surrounding park, allowing visitors to pass through parts of the building without entering. Hecker wanted his design for the Palmach Museum of History in Tel-Aviv, to “respect the soil,” and so it left much of the site intact, including the slope of the street and the existing trees.

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